Abraaj Capital Art Price

16 May
Preview feature of Chkoun Ahna in Art In America Magazine, quoting Timo Kaabi-Linke: 'You can only build your future if you dig through your past.'

8 May 2012
Risham Syed interview published in Newsline, Pakistan, read it in our articles section here

May 2012
Wael Shawky video interview at Art Dubai, watch it here on the Art Dubai blog page

May 2012
Wael Shawky video interview at Art Dubai, watch it here on the Art Dubai blog page

3 May 2012
Ibraaz go live with an interview between Nat Muller and Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige discussing their exhibition at The Third Line Dubai and 'A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination', March 2012.

1 May 2012
Islamic Arts Magazine reviews the ACAP show at Art Dubai 2012: "‘Spectral Imprints’ - Five winning artworks of the prestigious Abraaj Capital Art Prize"

18 April 2012
Read James Scaarborough of the Huffington Post who visited Art Dubai last month on Spectral Imprints

17 April 2012
'A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination' by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012, goes on exhibition less than one month after it was unveiled Art Dubai, as part of La Triennale 'Intense Proximity'

21 March 2012
Art in the city: ‘Spectral Imprints’ at the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012

21 March 2012
Art in the city Speaks To Joana Hadjithomas, Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 Winner

21 March 2012
Disposable Memories: A conversation between Raed Yassin and Nat Muller. Lebanese artist and musician Raed Yassin’s work mines recent history and pop culture for hypnotic and frequently amusing works that range from video to performance to sound art. Sampling sounds and images from obscure Arabic records, Egyptian films, and cable television, Yassin creates visual and aural collages underpinned by forms of visual interrogation and iconoclasm that are both personal and political. These include the murder of the artist’s father in Beirut in the 1980s, which provides a starting-point for his 2011 video and installation work Who Killed the King of Disco, in which Yassin imagines his father not dying but leaving Beirut to become an Egyptian screen idol. Or the reign of Hosni Mubarak in the 2008 video The New Film, which splices together scenes from Egyptian films in which Mubarak’s portrait is ever-present.

Ruminating on the collective imagination and aspirations of a region stretching from Morocco to the Gulf, Yassin explores memory through disposable culture, be it in the form of film and music, or the cheap commodities that are widely available across the region, if not necessarily produced there. As one of the recipients of the 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Yassin is presenting his new project China – depictions of Lebanese Civil War battles on decorative Chinese vases – as part of Abaaj’s exhibition during Art Dubai. He discusses this new work here with Nat Muller, curator of this year’s prize.

20 March 2012
Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 Unveiled at Art Dubai. Five winning artworks form the fourth edition of the prestigious Abraaj Capital Art Prize. Today sees the unveiling of the highly anticipated, ambitious artworks of the 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, the world’s only art prize to focus on the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region. The winning artists Taysir Batniji from Palestine, Wael Shawky from Egypt, Risham Syed from Pakistan, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige and Raed Yassin from Lebanon were announced in October 2011. In a departure from earlier formats used in Art Dubai, the winning artworks will be displayed together in a unified exhibition curated by Nat Muller from The Netherlands, the selected Guest Curator for 2012.

19 March
Art in the City Speaks to Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 Winner, Risham Syed

19 March
Art in the City Speaks to Raed Yassin, Winner of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012

19 March
Art in the City Speaks to Taysir Batniji, Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 Winner

18 March
Art in the City Speaks to Wael Shawky, Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 Winner

16 March
On site at Art Dubai building up the ACAP 2012 exhibition space and reading the fascinating articles in ArtintheCity on Taysir Batniji, Wael Shawky and Risham Syed, with more to come!

12 March 2012
Raed Yassin exhibiting in Kuwait at Sultan Gallery in 'Take me to this place: I want to do the memories': a multimedia installation by Beirut-based collective AtfalAhdath, comprised of Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam, and Raed Yassin. The work lays out a constellation of forms and reproduction procedures around photographic studio practices in the digital age. Take me to this place explores and manipulates the techniques that have fashioned a culture of reproducibility and standardization and accelerated the Arab world’s fascination with fame.

4 March
ACAP 2011 winner Nadia Kaabi-Linke exhibiting “Social States” At the Pump House Gallery, London, starting March 14th

1 March
How Soon is Now: A Tribute to Dreamers exhibition by Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 winners Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige opening Feb. 28th at Beirut Exhibition Center.

19 February 2012
Last 10 days for curators to apply for the 2013 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, register and apply now!

30 January
The National - Nadia Kaabi-Linke Captures A Sense of The Trap by Christopher Lord

23 January
The National - ‘Saudi artists find a voice in Edge of Arabia's Jeddah exhibition’ by Christopher Lord

22 January
Edge of Arabia Cover on the New York Times – ‘Contemporary Artists Rock The Boat Gently in Saudi Arabia’

19 January
Canvas Magazine - Curator and art critic Judith Souriau meets ACAP 2012 winner Taysir Batniji in his paris studio

17 January
Edge of Arabia Symposium held on Wednesday January 18th, with guest speaker Laura Egerton will take place at the Chamber of Commerce, Jeddah.

16 January
Pulling the strings on Arab history - ACAP 2012 Winner Wael Shawky talks about his recent projects

10 January
The National - Countdown to Art Dubai: Press Conference Outlines Plans For March

8 January
Open Call — MASS Alexandria | Independent Art Studio & Study Program 2012 - Deadline for application: January 12th, 2012

8 January
First edition of Harper's Bazaar Art talks about Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012 winners. Click here to read.

22 December
Applications are now open to Curators and Artists to apply for the fifth edition of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2013. Please register here to begin your application

15 December
Abraaj Capital Art Prize artworks to be exhibited in Jeddah in partnership with Edge of Arabia, from 19 January 2012

7 December 2011
Suspended Lives and Emerging Voices: Nadia Kaabi-Linke in Conversation with Lina Lazaar.
The work of Nadia Kaabi-Linke uses a variety of media to trace transient personal histories, trans-global movement and the passage of time, creating an archive of narratives that provide insights into, for example, the artist’s boredom while working in a call centre, or the daily movements of a group of street vendors trying to make a living in Venice. A sense of fragility underwrites these works, not least in the materials used: delicate strings suspend the skeletal form of a bridge, for example, and dust gives form to the fleeting imprint of a cheek on glass, perhaps, or a scar on the body.

Nadia Kaabi-Linke spent autumn 2011 in London developing new work as part of a residency at The Delfina Foundation, which facilitates artistic exchanges and dialogue between the UK and the Middle East and North Africa. In November, the artist sat down with Ibraaz’s Associate Editor Lina Lazaar to discuss her previous work and to outline her concept for a new project exploring immigration, religion and identity.

28 November
The official “Bokra” charity album being released by Sony is being launched in music stores across the Middle East and North Africa today, 22nd of November.

As we have announced, all funds raised from this initiative will finance education programs in music, arts and culture for children across the Arab world, collected by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) in support of series of different organizations doing some great work in this field, such as the United Nations World Food Program and the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation, to name a few.

We appreciate all the assistance we get with this charitable initiative, as we collectively work on a better ‘Bokra-Tomorrow’ for all.

10 November 2011
Final days to see 'The Future of a Promise', the largest Pan-Arab show of contemporary art at the 54th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition will close its doors on November 13 2011. With over 40,000 visitors since its opening in June, this landmark exhibition has brought together more than twenty-five recent works and commissions by some of the foremost artists from the Arab world.

13 October 2011
Read the biographies of our 2012 winners of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize here

4 October 2011
The Abraaj Capital Art Prize, now in its fourth year, announced today the five winning artists for 2012. The artists, who were selected from a record number of submissions, have begun working on realizing the artworks they proposed which will be unveiled during Art Dubai in March 2012. The artworks become permanent additions to the Abraaj Capital Collection.

The 2012 winners are an internationally acclaimed and diverse group who combine outstanding artistic ability with a desire to engage and champion the arts throughout the region. All the winners have a strong exhibition history regionally and internationally, and are actively involved in inspiring the next generation of artists from the region to achieve success. The winning artists are:
• Taysir Batniji (Palestine)
• Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon)
• Wael Shawky (Egypt)
• Risham Syed (Pakistan)
• Raed Yassin (Lebanon)

Following a successful precedent established in 2010, the five artists will work with one guest curator, who for the first time was selected through an open submission process. Nat Muller (The Netherlands) was chosen by the Selection Committee as guest curator for 2012 and is working closely with the artists in supervising the production of the artworks, their display at Art Dubai, and the publishing of an annual catalogue

30 August
Congratulations to ACAP 2010 Curator Mahita El Bacha Urieta who is one of the curators of the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale, opening September 18th in Greece. Click here for more information

1 August 2011
Review recent articles about the Abraaj Capital Art Prize and its artists, for example the current exhibition in Venice 'Future of A Promise' in our Articles section here

27 July 2011
Read about Shezad Dawood's new film project 'Piercing Brightness' in today's The National:
...Dawood's work for the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, shown at Art Dubai this year, recreated Brion Gysin's "Dream Machines", originally designed in 1960s Tangiers to induce lucid dreaming in the viewer. His research for the project, detailed in the accompanying catalogue, spanned everything from cosmological diagrams by Ibn Arabi to scores of music contemporary to the time...

25 July 2011
Hala Elkoussy's Mural: the Myths and Legends Room - exhibition at City Hall, London extended to 8 August. Read about the work in the essay by Jelle Bouwhuis on Universes-in-Universe here: 'An insider's view of an urban pressure cooker'

8 July 2011
A forecast of the Arab spring By Peter Aspden
On the lower ground level of London’s City Hall, a large mural celebrates the opening of Shubbak, a three-week festival of contemporary Arab culture that runs until July 24. The mural, by Egyptian artist Hala Elkoussy, portrays a society in turmoil: a shrill photo-montage that cheerfully mixes myth and fact, homage and critique, affection and distaste. We get a sharp sense of the bustle and the bombast that colours present-day Cairo. The Egyptian capital is in the throes of revolution; yet this piece, winner of last year’s Abraaj Art Prize, predates the events of the Arab spring by a year.

4 July 2011
Abraaj Capital Art Prize comes to London this summer. In Partnership with Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture Myths & Legends Room: The Mural by Egyptian artist Hala Elkoussy on display at City Hall, July 4-24 Global Launch of ‘Footnote to a Project’ and panel discussion with ACAP curators at the Mosaic Rooms, July 7

13 June
Articles on the Future of a Promise exhibition being uploaded in Media Section, here is Rachel Spence writing for the Financial Times last weekend.

25 May 2011
The ACAP 2011 People's Choice votes have been counted, and Nadia Kaabi-Linke's 'Flying Carpet's' won the vote, congratulations Nadia. We will have the chance to view 'Flying Carpets' in the collateral event of the Venice Biennale 'The Future of a Promise' opening next week. David Alesworth, an artist and educator based in Pakistan won the online competition by writing the following statement about Jananne Al-Ani's ACAP piece: 'I felt the aerial journey over such loaded territory was a powerful metaphor for the position of the artist as one who is both engaged and yet apart from the present history and culture. The work is both poetic and political lending itself to multiple readings and uncharted encounters with its audience.' Look out for his article coming soon in the Art Dubai Journal

16 May
Future of a Promise, opening on June 1st, wil lbe the Venice Biennale’s largest Pan-Arab exhibition of contemporary art. From Tunisia all the way to Saudi Arabia, this landmark exhibition brings together more than twenty-five recent works and commissions by some of the foremost artists from the Arab world. The exhibition is being curated by Lina Lazaar, produced by Edge of Arabia and supported by Abdul Latif
Jameel Community Initiatives and Abraaj Capital, three newly partnered organisations whose commitment to
contemporary art practice in the Middle East is at the heart of a current artistic renaissance in the region.

1 May
Record number of applications received for ACAP 2012, thank you artists for submitting!

28 April
Final days for ACAP 2012 applications to be submitted

5 April 2011
Deadline for artists to apply for the 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize is April 30th, a few weeks to go

March 15 2011
Remember to vote in the People's Choice, to pick your favourite artwork in the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize

March 15 2011
Unveiling of the 2011 Abraaj Capital Art Prize works at Art Dubai today

March 9th 2011
One week until you can visit Art Dubai and view the 2011 artworks! Vote for your favourite in the People\'s Choice, on here from the night of the 15 March. First 10 voters on the site win a copy of the 2011 catalogue, Footnotes to a Project signed by all the winners

March 1st 2011
Q & A's with all 5 ACAP 2011 winners now uploaded in the Media Section on this site!

Feb 20th 2011
ACAP 2011 winner complete their projects in anticipation of the unveiling at Art Dubai

Jan 1st 2011
Connect with us on Twitter @AbraajArtPrize

Oct 2010
2011 ACAP Winners Announced

Jan 1st 2011
Stay in touch with Abraaj Capital Aart Prize on Facebook.

Jan 10th 2011
Call for Curator Applications 2012. Applications open

Image/Video

Myths and Legends Room: the Mural by Hala Elkoussy (2010) and History of a Myth: the Small Dome of the Rock by Kader Attia (2010) part of 'Chkoun Ahna', Carthage Contemporary, National Museum of Carthage, Tunisia, May 12 - June 15 2012.

Spectral Imprints: The Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012, displayed the winning artworks China by Raed Yassin (Lebanon), The Seven Seas by Risham Syed (Pakistan), To My Brother by Taysir Batniji (Palestine), A Glimpse of Clean History by Wael Shawky (Egypt) and A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon) at Art Dubai. Click Here to read a selection of coverage.

A Letter Can Always Reach its Destination by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (2012) is currently on exhibition as part of 'Intense Proximity', La Triennale, Palais De Tokyo, Paris, until August 26 2012.

The New Dream Machine Project by Shezad Dawood (2011), 'Piercing Brightness' at Modern Art Oxford, UK, until June 10 2012.

Shadow Sites II by Jananne Al Ani part of 'all our relations', the 18th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, June 27 to September 16 2012.